Evansville city programs, non-profits may suffer from President Trump's budget

2017-03-20T18:24:05Z2017-03-30T21:59:05Z

Source: City of Evansville

EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) -

Evansville may have to rearrange their funding if President Donald Trump's budget goes through.

The city gets around $3 million in federal funding each year. They rely heavily on $2 million worth of Community Development Block Grants, which help fund close to 60 programs each year.

Those funds go towards affordable housing and Evansville's land bank program, where they tear down blighted properties and redevelop them over time. Also affected are those at the Tri-State Food Bank, who tell us their backpack program wouldn't have any backing and close to 21,000 meals would be lost.

"I think this mentality is draconian. These people are disadvantaged and this is a way to punish the disadvantaged. We're doing the government's job by helping those who are less fortunate. And these cuts make no sense," says Glenn Roberts, Executive Director of the Tri-State Food Bank.

"They were a creating of the republican administration the Nixon Administration came up with CDBG as a way to directly return federal income tax dollars to the people who pay them, there's nothing else that does that," says Kelley Coures, Executive Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development.

The city has relied on these grants since 1970. City Officials are meeting with Congressman Larry Buschon to address his concerns later this week.